In 1895 the chess club in Hastings organised a tournament that was the strongest ever held up to that time. Taking place over the month of August all the leading players of the day participated. The favourites were Lasker, Steinitz, Tarrasch and Chigorin. The winner turned out to be the then relatively unknown American Pillsbury, who was playing in his first major tournament. The tournament was memorable for a number of masterpieces created and a very exciting finish with the lead changing hands in the last three rounds.
In this game versus Tarrasch, Pillsbury has exposed Black's king. How will he exploit this ?
👍 Video - Amos Burn v Emanuel Lasker (4:39)
👍 Video - Battle of Hastings (2:21)
At High School some friends and I used to play 'friendly' mini-tournaments which were a lot of fun.
In March 2020 four women played each other twice in a mini-tournament held in Minsk, Belarus.
In this position White has pinned Black's undefended knight. Black counterattacks by castling to attack the bishop on a8.
🤔 Who will come off better ? - Game 2
Tournament database
* Who wins the tournament ?
If you take chess seriously, you will improve rapidly and start to face stronger opponents. From that moment on, the value of the pieces stops being static. You can no longer just dump your bishops because you like knights better. Nor will you get
away with sacrificing a piece for three pawns without a decent follow-up. You will also learn that randomly exchanging pieces usually only benefits your opponent, for two reasons:
- with every exchange you make, you improve his recapturing piece
- the easiest trades are your active pieces against his passives ones
Before you know it, your main concern is not only which pieces to exchange, but also when, where and how.
The Chess
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🙂 Video - an entertaining miniature (2:40 min)